


Edge of our Hope

by demonsonthemoon



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Deaf Character, Kaiju cockblocking your faves, Loss of limb (past mentioned), M/M, amputee character, everyone has too many feelings, past character death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 03:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9950237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonsonthemoon/pseuds/demonsonthemoon
Summary: Nobody wonders whether Clint and Bucky are drift compatible. They clearly are. Which is the problem, since Clint already has a drift partner, and Bucky can't ever pilot again. Well, it's the problem for some people. Not for them. Never for them.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic was written as part of the Winterhawk Mini Bang and was illustrated by the lovely Em! Check out [their awesome artwork](https://bizrreer.tumblr.com/post/157743150891/here-is-a-collaborative-piece-i-did-with)!

Clint's hanbo slammed against Bucky's shorter wooden staff, which he wielded with only one hand. Clint was often surprised at the strength behind the other man's blows. His right hand had always been his dominant one, which helped, but he had been piloting on his left side, and that should have messed with his technique a lot more now that he had lost his arm on that side of his body.

“You're distracted,” Bucky said as Clint blocked his next hit only an inch away from his face. Clint grinned, hooking a foot around Bucky's ankle and pushing him backwards.

“What can I say? You're distracting.” He saw Bucky bite back a smile, which didn't stop him from trying to land another series of blows that had Clint side-stepping across the practice mat. He _had_ been distracted, and despite his earlier attempt to regain the advantage, he was losing his rhythm. He kept smiling as he tried to block and dodge Bucky's hits. He felt himself lose his balance as Bucky landed a powerful hit right in the middle of his hanbo. His fighting partner was quick to notice it, and pulled his feet from under him so that he went sprawling on his back. Clint rolled and aimed a kick at one of Bucky's knees, but the other man quickly turned, leaning his back against Clint's leg and trapping it against him with his arm. He bent down and brought his fighting stick down right over Clint's face.

Clint grinned. Then winced, as Bucky's pressure against his leg pulled at his muscles.

“Oh my god, let me go, I yield, I yield!”

Bucky let him go, dropping his fighting stick to the ground and putting his arm behind him as he sat down.

“I told you you were distracted.”

Clint ran a hand through his short blond hair, unabashed. “And I told you that you're distracting.”

He winked, and Bucky rolled his eyes before pulling himself up and stretching his neck.

The practice room was totally empty, which was one of the reasons Clint wasn't afraid to be flirting this obviously. It was a bittersweet thought, since the reason they were training so late in the first place was to avoid their superiors' disapproval. None of them really knew what to do with Bucky. He had been discharged after the loss of his limb, but remained on site at the Shatterdome as part of his treatment and to help with the drift technology research. Now that his drift partner was dead and that he couldn't fight anymore, Bucky was considered deadweight by most of the other pilots. And although no one dared to say anything about it, most people disapproved of the close bond between him and Clint, which they saw as some kind of betrayal against Clint's actual drift partner.

Clint didn't care what people thought. And he knew that Kate didn't either. Their connection in the Drift was still as strong as ever, despite what anybody said. Kate would probably be the first to defend her partner's choices. As much as she disapproved of him coming to their own practice sessions all bruised up and sore from sparring with Bucky, she knew it was a good cure against his restlessness.

Clint looked up at Bucky, who was staring into space. He made a striking picture, shirt clinging to his chest and sweat dripping along his skin, the hair he had started growing out since his dismissal sticking to his neck. Clint let himself look, enjoying the view.

When Bucky finally snapped out of his daze and met his gaze, he rolled his eyes at Clint's suggestive raise of eyebrows. Clint laughed, and finally pulled himself off the ground. He laid a hand on Bucky's hip as he crossed the room. “Come on, let's get out of here.” Bucky leaned into the touch, but didn't follow after Clint had let him go. The blond man stopped and turned around.

“Do you think we could drift together?”

Clint froze. “Bucky...”

Bucky ran his hand through his hair. He sighed. “I know. I know. I can't ever pilot again. Not with this thing.” He raised his left shoulder to indicate his stump.

“Bucky...”

The man waved his hand. “I shouldn't have broached the subject, sorry for the pity party.” His face was turned away from Clint, as much as it could be while still letting the blond man read lips.

Clint bridged the distance between them, putting a hand on Bucky's cheek and softly forcing him to face him once more. “Stop it.”

Clint felt uncomfortable. Frustrated. Bucky's phrasing was clear. He hadn't asked whether Clint thought they were Drift Compatible. That question was much too easy to answer. He had asked whether they could ever drift.

Clint lightly tapped Bucky's cheek in a pretend-slap of some kind.

Bucky glared at him. They could still feel the energy from the fight thrum between them, as well as the connexion that the exercise in synchronization had left wide opened. It felt electric. Unnerving. Alive and _wanting_ , like being brought to the ocean and being told you couldn't go in.

The connexion they shared was too much and too little all at once, and Clint forced himself to focus on a different kind of wanting. He slowly let his fingers run against Bucky's cheek and bit down on his lower lip.

“Kate is gonna hate you tomorrow,” Clint said, hand still on Bucky's skin. “She's gonna hate you so much.”

“Yeah?” Bucky asked, raising an eyebrow. He lifted his chin slightly at the same time, and Clint let his fingers follow the path of it down his neck, until they rested against the man's collarbones.

“Obviously she's gonna hate me more, but she has a soft spot for you so that's no wonder.”

Bucky kissed him, effectively shutting him up. Not that Clint was complaining. He grabbed Bucky's sweaty tank top by the hemline to bring the other man even closer, hungrily kissing him back.

It wasn't the right way to finish the conversation. It wasn't the smart way. Or the adult way. But Clint didn't want to think about it. Not when he didn't know how to talk about this, not when he felt as lost as Bucky, even though he should have been the one to guide him.

The truth was, Clint was kind of glad Bucky couldn't pilot anymore. There wasn't any doubt about whether they were compatible or not. The fact that they were was obvious to everybody who had seen them fight together. And Clint knew that Bucky had checked their baseline chemical compatibility as well.

They matched. Maybe even too well. Clint was scared that, if they ever piloted together, the connection would be too intense. It would be so easy to get lost in each other's thought. He remembered piloting with Kate for the first time, and how it had felt like they were exploring each other's mind and body all at once. He remembered being awed by the world he could hear through Kate's ears, just as Kate had been awed by the world Clint experienced through his deafness.

Bucky bit down on Clint's lower lip, waiting for him to open his mouth, and Clint knew. Clint knew how easy it would be to lose himself in that mind and that body, even easier considering that they had both drifted with other people and that those experiences were also there for the other to tap into.

Clint was scared. Sliding his tongue into Bucky's mouth, as he ran the hand that wasn't holding his shirt through the man's hair, Clint was scared. As much as he wanted to know all he could about Bucky, he wasn't sure he would be able to handle knowing it from the inside.

Bucky pulled away.

“We should go. You get enough shit just because you hang out with me, I don't think I want to find out what would happen if someone found us making out in the practice rooms.”

Clint laughed, letting go of Bucky's t-shirt. He realised both of them had forgotten their hanbos on the floor, and went to pick them up. He stopped next to Bucky, looking at his face.

“Your room or my room?” Clint asked.

Bucky thought about it for a second. “Your room. It's closest.”

It was. Clint's room was in the Rangers quarters, the closest to the deployment bays and training rooms, whereas Bucky's was on the edge of the medical staff's quarters.

“Yeah.”

Clint took the lead, and they walked down the hallways in silence. They crossed a pair of pilots on their way, who raised an eyebrow at the two of them, but didn't comment. Clint put on the fakest smile he possibly could as he waved hello, and saw one of them mumble in response.

He kept walking. He opened the heavy door to his room, indicating for Bucky to walk in first with a flourish of the hand.

Apparently, the hallway incident had sent Bucky back to his earlier melancholy state. He sat down on Clint's bed, and the other man sat down next to him.

Bucky closed his eyes, running a hand over his face.

“I can't stop thinking about it. I can't. Not when they're doing all these tests with me, closed-circuit simulations, trying to figure out how I was able to pilot on my own and get Howling back to shore. All I can think about is his _Drift, Drift, Drift_.”

“It's like an addiction, I heard. The Drift fires up your pathways in a certain way, and you end up constantly trying to re-create that thrill. I heard that's how ghost-drifting works.”

“Yeah. I know. They're doing research on that too. The ghost-drifting. I guess they never had a subject taking it as literally as me before.”

Clint was surprised at this. He could tell it was a conversation Bucky wasn't fully comfortable with from the way the other man was looking at the wall him instead of at his face.

“Do you still feel him? Steve?”

Bucky nodded, looking down at his lap.

“Sometimes. It's not the same as before but... I still feel a... pull. And sometimes I do things without realising, and notice afterwards that they're things Steve would have done. But I guess that might just be because I still have access to his memories. And then there's...” He sighed.

Clint put a hand on Bucky's shoulder.

“You know those things people say about the Drift being like the river Styx?” Bucky started again.

“That when you die, you end up floating across the river, a set of memories forever preserved, part of the Drift itself? That people can still find you there?”

“Yeah. Except that's not accurate. People's souls didn't end up _in_ the river. You just had to cross the river to go to the afterlife. And you bribed a boatman to do it. I guess Steve's making his way across the river, now. And we... Me, Howling Commando, and everyone who knew him... We're the boatpeople. And he can only finish crossing if we let him go.”

Clint kept his hand where it was on Bucky's shoulder. He had to bend his head kind of awkwardly to make sure he could read Bucky's lips clearly, but he wasn't about to complain about that. Not in a moment like this.

“Do you want to let him go?” Clint asked.

Bucky turned his head towards him, surprised. Under the crude light of his bedroom light, Clint could see that the circles he had noticed under Bucky's eyes were darker than he had first thought.

“Don't I have to?”

Clint shrugged. “I don't think I'm an expert on this. Obviously I never lost a drift partner. And I don't exactly know where I stand on the whole soul and afterlife thing. But I think... I think there's no proper way to grieve. And I think that the dead themselves... they don't care whether we hold onto them or let them go. I think... I think being in the river must be scary, but so is going to the other side. There's no better option.”

“I still ghost-drift with Howling Commando sometimes,” Bucky said. “Or at least I think I do. And I feel like I ought to let her go too, because she'll be lucky if she gets torn apart and her pieces are used in another Jaeger. But I know they'll keep the AI and it's just...”

Bucky bit down on his lower lip. He started undoing his shoes, and settled himself fully onto the bed, turning towards Clint with his legs crossed. Clint mirrored his position, not saying anything, giving him time.

“I think maybe as much as I want to drift with you, I want to drift with _it_ again. And through that maybe I just want to drift with Steve.”

Bucky had barely finished his sentence that he looked down at his lap, letting his hair fall over him in a protective curtain.

And Clint was thankful. He didn't want to have to stop himself from showing any emotion. He felt hurt. He didn't want to have to hide that. But if Bucky didn't ask for what Clint couldn't give, it was okay.

He thought about what he could say. He had never been really good with words, though. It wasn't his thing. And he had never known loss in the way Bucky had. Sure, he'd lost his parents, but he had been young at the time, could barely remember them now. And he had lost his brother, in a way, but mostly because the guy was an asshole. He still had Kate. He still had Hawk Eye. He had Bucky.

Clint put a hand under Bucky's chin, pushing it up slightly, and used the other to get his hair out of his face.

Bucky held his gaze. Clint had nearly expected to see tears, although it wasn't really Bucky's style. He swallowed audibly, staring deep in the other man's blue eyes.

“I know I'll never replace Steve.”

Bucky nearly flinched away, but Clint held him in place.

“But that's okay. It's one of the reason I don't want to drift with you. Not unless we need to. I don't want to be a replacement.”

Bucky tried to look away, but Clint angled his face towards him once more.

“I want to keep what we have, I want to stay whatever I am to you. Not Steve. Not a bad copy. I want to be the person who takes you away from him. I want to keep you for myself. I want more.” He let go of Bucky's face and let his voice drop to a whisper. “I want more.”

Bucky's eyes were wide with surprise, maybe a hint of desire, and his breaths were coming out a little faster than before. Clint smiled. It was a shy expression, barely fluttering on his lips, but somehow all the more honest for it.

Bucky leaned in to kiss him, with Clint meeting him halfway in perfect synchronicity. It was another way to communicate, one where neither of them needed to master their unwieldy words. So close to one another, sensations sparking through both their bodies as their hands explored alien skin, it felt like they were creating their own Drift. They were willingly drowning in a river of their own making, each of their thoughts careeninginto the other's body and being echoed in their own. Clint could feel Bucky shaking against him, and he edged closer, putting his arms around the other man as if that would shield him from the external world somehow.

Bucky broke the kiss, burying his head in Clint's neck. Clint could feel him mouthing something against his skin, though he couldn't hear it. He didn't mind. Bucky would speak to him when he was ready.

Clint let him calm down a little bit, before slipping his fingers underneath Bucky's shirt. He felt the other man's breath hitch as he started to trace the shape of his ribs. He slowly pushed him towards the bed, and Bucky got his meaning and quickly lied down on his back, letting Clint settle over him.

“We kind of promised to make Kate hate me, right?” Clint said, glad to be able to lighten the mood.

Bucky chuckled at that. Clint stopped him from making any disobliging comment by planting another kiss on the man's lips, gently nipping on his lower lip in a way he knew Bucky liked. Bucky closed his eyes, letting himself go as Clint made his way from his mouth to his chin and neck, sucking a little at the junction with his shoulder.

He wished he could do this all day. Lying with a man he cared for, watching him slowly surrender himself to his own present, become pliant and vulnerable instead of cold and guarded. He wished the war got put on hold, just for this. Just so he could spent an eternity kissing this other man's scarred skin.

He pulled on Bucky's shirt, who sat up slightly and raised his arms until Clint managed to get the garment on the floor. He pushed Bucky back again, mouth immediately latching to a small star-shaped mark two inches under his left collarbone. Bucky ran his hand through Clint's hair, softly, barely there, as if he was still scared that Clint would bolt if he pressed too much. Fat chance.

Not that it had been love at first sight between Clint and Bucky.  
The latter had been a Ranger for much longer than Clint, though “much longer” was a relative term when the Jaeger programm was only a few years old anyway. Still, Howling Commando had been famous, at one point. A Mark II Jaeger, piloted by childhood friends Steve Rogers and James Barnes. The team had continued to run missions even has the Mark IIIs began to be deployed. Until Clawhook. Until Howling Commando was half destroyed in combat and Ranger Steve Rogers lost his life. Until Clint and Kate got sent to the Anchorage Shatterdome to be deployed with one of the first Mark IV Jaegers.

It hadn't been love at first sight. More disappointment. Pity, maybe, when Clint had realised that the amputee getting strange looks from others everytime he walked past was one of the Rangers he had admired during his training.

It hadn't lasted long. Not after finding Bucky in one of the training rooms, practicing drills by himself, the moves carefully modified to accommodate his disability. Not after he has asked if he could join the other man, too antsy to sleep, too _tired_ to sleep, and Bucky had shrugged and nodded, narrowed gaze staying on Clint's body for the next half hour, as if trying to figure out what Clint was about. Not after Clint had dragged Kate to Bucky's table in the mess hall the next day. Not after he had realised how quick-witted Bucky was, sarcastic in a way that matched Clint's perfectly.

It hadn't been love at first sight between them. Even now, Clint wasn't sure if he would call it love at all. Love was a dangerous thing, in a war. It had a way to ruin your focus. To keep you from making the hard decisions. It was a liability. So maybe it wasn't love. Or maybe it was just better not to call it love, maybe avoiding the word was enough to make it safe, or safer somehow.

The only thing Clint was sure of, was that he wasn't bolting. He wasn't running away from this, from Bucky. Even if it scared him, sometimes. His thing with Bucky. Bucky himself. It all scared him, from time to time.

But not now, not when Bucky's hand was under his shirt and his own mouth was lightly sucking on one of the other man's nipples. Here and now, he didn't feel scared of anything.

Clint sat up and pulled his shirt over his head, dropping it to the floor. Bucky's eyes trailed down his chest, appreciative, and Clint felt himself shiver under the heaviness of that gaze. He bent back down, reaching Bucky who propped himself up with his one arm to meet his kiss. Clint supported himself on one hand, sliding his other along Bucky's side until he reached his sweatpants, pushing them down.

And then lights began flashing in the room, and Bucky flinched at the sound of the alarm.

“For fuck's sake,” Clint couldn't help but swear as he disentangled himself from Bucky. A kaiju attack. He was being deployed because of a kaiju attack, which was possibly the best erection killer, but also the worst way to end this evening.

Bucky looked frozen in Clint's bed.

Clint stopped putting his shoes on. “Bucky?”

The man didn't react. Clint wasn't sure whether he had spoken loud enough to be heard above the siren. He put a hand on the other man's shoulder. Bucky's eyes snapped up, and he started shaking, recoiling from Clint's touch.

It would have been a lot easier if Bucky knew sign language, because the noise of the siren was messing with Clint's perception of his own vocal volume, but he started talking anyway. “I have to go, Bucky. You should probably leave. I mean, the alarm's gonna turn off soon, so if you want to stay... wait for me... I guess you can, but I'd rather you... I'd rather you not be alone.”

Bucky nodded, eyes closed, his one arm draped over his chest. Clint bent forward and kissed him softly on the lips. “I'm gonna come back,” he said.

Then he put his second shoe on, turned around, and left the room. If Bucky said something else to him, Clint didn't hear it.

  


Kate had already been sleeping, if the disarray of her hair was any indication. Actually, given the way she was glaring at the tech strapping on her breast plate like they were personally responsible for the kaiju war, she had definitely been sleeping.

Usually, Clint would have made a light-hearted remark about it, to try and anger her into a state of full wakefulness. He didn't have it in him today.

He stepped into place as techs hovered around him and strapped on his suit. It felt heavier than it should, and Clint realised how tired he was, after his long day and subsequent sparring session with Bucky. This was a terrible condition to be in for a drop and he knew it.

Kate turned her face towards him and he smiled weakly, trying not to infect her with his worry, though that would happen soon enough anyway. She frowned at him, raising an eyebrow. He shaked his head, then signed _I'm okay_ , earning an annoyed glare from one of the techs.

They stepped into the Connpod, locking their suits into place. A holoscreen turned on in front of them and pronounced them ready for the drop. After a count down from three to zero, they fell. Kate and Clint mirrored each other's position instinctively as they found their balance again.

The same screen blinked once, then started counting down again, warning them that they were engaging the Drift.

Clint took a deep breath.

Their consciousnesses started merging, their memories scattering across both brains in an instant in overwhelming confusion. Clint could make out a conversation between Kate and her dad, could make out anger and frustration. He felt her prod a little at his worry, his fear, finding the image of Bucky trembling and holding an arm around himself.

Then they both breathed out, and settled into a joint consciousness.

“Drift engaged and stable,” came a voice, carried over the Jaeger's comms from LOCCENT, the control center. Another voice took over. “We've got one signature. Category 3. It's pretty big, though at least its speed seems limited. Currently heading towards the US west coast. Vladivostok is sending another Mark IV. Others are ready for deployment as backup. Engage as far off the coast as you possibly can.”

“Copy that,” Clint and Kate both said in unison. The Shatterdome opened to let them out, and their team of helicopters started lifting them up in the air.

Inside Hawk Eye, Kate and Clint could do nothing but settle for the wait.

It was the worst part of every drop. The Jaegers had to be carried to their drop-off side with their pilots already in them and drifting. It was a hassle, and most new recruits had trouble retaining focus. This was Clint and Kate's third drop, though, they were getting used to it.

He could feel Kate curiously explore his recent memories. He could guess it was partly because she wanted to avoid thinking about her own, and so he avoided stepping into her mind space altogether. He smiled as he felt her roll her eyes at the comments he had made about her while flirting with Bucky.

“You two are so disgustingly adorable it makes me want to puke,” Kate thought in his direction. He could hear her directly in his mind, in a voice that wasn't his, but wasn't hers either. Clint guessed it was they way she herself imagined her voice to be.

He pulled a face at being called adorable, which was probably Kate's intended effect.

“Is he serious about wanting to drift with you?”

There was no possibility to stall and weigh his possible answers, not when Kate was tapping directly into his mind. He thought of several different moments in which Bucky had mentioned the possibility, then of the way he had compared drifting with an addiction.

“Probably.”

He thought of the studies they were conducting on Bucky, the closed-circuit pseudo-drift they had created in an attempt to figure out how he had been able to pilot alone. He guessed that Bucky had at least considered that possibility. Creating another closed-circuit drift, but with another person. No need for him to step into a Jaeger again. He was too aware that they would never let him do _that_.

He felt Kate echo his worry, but in a guarded way that made him probe slightly deeper.

She was anxious about _him_. About him considering the possibility as well. Not because she was jealous. Not because she thought she would lose her place to Bucky. But because she was worried the two men would lose themselves if they ever did drift together.

Clint tried to reassure her, to make her understand that he was aware of the risks and that they were too big, that he wasn't going to do it and had made that clear to Bucky.

But she was right. The temptation, the possibility, would always be there.

They both tried to refocus, keep their mind as blank as possible, shut out everything that didn't belong in the present moment. Don't chase the memories. The Drift is silence.

They finally reached their drop site, and braced for impact as they were released. Their Jaeger lit up with different monitors, their attention immediately going to their radar. The night had already completely set in, and they were way too far from the shore for any light from the nearby cities to reach them. They had their own searchlights, and so did their airborne team, but the darkness was unnerving all the same. The ocean was such a vast space, and most of it was darkness.

The first signal they received was on their comm line, and they were warned of the approach of the Russian Jaeger. The airborne team and their Jaeger entered their radar field a few minutes later, and the Jaeger was dropped a good distance away from them.

They waited.

Clint and Kate heard a signal, and immediately diverted their attention back to the radar.

“Hawk Eye, you're picking up the kaiju signature. It looks like it's heading towards you. Prepare for contact.”

Kate and Clint didn't have to look at one another. They raised their fists, feeling the Jaeger move around them as they did, and braced themselves for impact.

  


The way back to the Shatterdome was only slightly less difficult than the journey from it to the drop site. The two pilots were caught in a loop of exhaustion that reverberated and amplified across their Drift. The only thing on their mind was the battle they had just won and their yearning for silence and privacy.

They deconnected the Drift as soon as they were safe in the Shatterdome, both of them slumping against the apparatus that kept them strapped to the Jaeger.

They both took a few seconds to catch their breath, letting it fall out of sync with a bitter aftertaste. Clint finally let himself think about Bucky, about where he was, what he was doing, if he was still waiting for him.

“Go find your boyfriend,” Kate said after taking off her helmet. “I'll debrief with the Marshall.”

Clint started taking off his own suit and thanked her, knowing that the Marshall would be pissed at him for missing the briefing and that Kate would have to stand on the other side of that bad mood. It was a big favour. “I owe you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I'll add it to the list.”

He dropped the pieces of his suit on the floor of the Jaeger's Connpod, promising himself to apologize to the techs the next days, and ran out as quickly as he could.

He stopped at his room first, on the off-chance that Bucky truly had waited there for him as well as to change his clothes. He was able to do the latter, although his “boyfriend” - Was that what they were? He didn't really think so. They had never talked about it. - wasn't there. Clint tried to force himself to calm down. If Bucky wasn't here, it meant he had probably found someone to stay with while he waited, or he had watched the stream of the Jaeger's camera alone. Which meant he could be in LOCCENT, in the mess hall, or in his room. The first option was unlikely, since he didn't have any official position anymore and would probably be considered in the way by everyone else in the control center. This left the mess hall and his private room. Clint set out towards the latter as soon as he had changed into something a little more confortable than the form-fitting undersuit he had to wear while piloting.

He knocked loudly on the door, cursing the heavy metal as he hurt his knuckles doing so. He knocked a second time after only a few seconds. He was shifting his weight from foot to foot, the exhaustion that had taken possession of him on his way back once more replaced by adrenaline. Finally, the door began to open. Clint resisted the urge to just throw himself at Bucky, firstly because it was definitely _not_ the kind of thing he did, and secondly because there was a very high risk that Bucky would punch him in the face out of reflex. So he waited, pushing a non-existent strand of hair behind his ear.

Bucky opened the door with a carefully neutral expression on his face. The bags under his eyes betrayed the hours spent awake, and Clint was fairly sure they mirrored his own. Thinking about it now, it probably would have been smarter to stop by the mess hall first and bring back some snacks.

Still. Food could wait. There were more important things to be dealt with first. (And this was not a thought Clint often had, as Kate was fond of reminding him.)

“Hey,” he said, voice soft.

Bucky stepped away from the door and let him in.

“Did you watch the stream?” Clint asked.

He never knew whether he wanted the answer to be yes or no. Being able to watch the fights against kaiju in real time could be a blessing and a curse. Clint couldn't help but think that there was a chance his loved ones would one day watch him die through their television screens, would be able to pinpoint the moment he stopped breathing as it happened, and would still be unable to stop it, stuck in their seats miles and miles away.

It wasn't what he wished for his friends. Still, despite that, there was no other way he would rather die than in a Jaeger. Except perhaps of old age.

Which was what he wished for Bucky. Since he hadn't died a soldier, maybe he would get to die a survivor. It was something to hope for, though Clint had his doubts. Bucky wasn't one to go quietly.

“I did watch, yeah. Didn't seem like you'd been seriously injured. Any burn marks?”

The Mark IV suits were a lot better than the previous generations, but their continuous use for several hours while in action still tended to cause minor skin burns. Clint nodded, pulling his long-sleeved t-shirt over his head and presenting his arms to Bucky.

The other man walked to his shelves and retrieved a tub of ointment to ease the burns. Clint could have gone to the medical bay to get treated, but this was better.

He let himself be moved around as Bucky slowly rubbed the cream into his skin. His mind was ready to forget who he was, tired with being too many people at once and aching for the relief of being no one. The careful pressure of Bucky's fingers against his skin anchored him to the present though, for which he was grateful.

He didn't want to float away. He wanted more of that feeling of being _here_ , of being welcome, of being home.

He wanted for other people to be there everytime he stepped out of Hawk Eye. He wanted more. Not just Kate and him against the world, two runaways with cut-off bridges who had found each other. He wanted strings.

He let his head drop onto Bucky's shoulder. The other man stilled his hand where it was pressing against Clint's burns. The pain was too shallow and too widespread for Clint to really feel it at all.

“Are you okay?” Bucky asked, hesitant. He was always guarded after Clint came back from a mission. Probably he didn't want to worry Clint with how much he worried about him. It was stupid. But they were two defensive men in the military so maybe this kind of stupid was to be expected.

“I'm feeling great,” Clint mumbled against the other man's skin.

“Are you joking? 'Cause this isn't really funny and I don't know how to-”

“Hey Bucky,” he interrupted him, facing him once more. “How about you shut up and kiss me? And then help me come up with an excuse as to why coming to see you was more important than debriefing my mission. And then, content with having found the perfect excuse, we can sleep together in a too-small bed and complain about how much our backs hurt tomorrow. Sounds good?”

Bucky stared at him. He let out a strangled giggle that quickly turned into full on-laughter, and bent his head down in embarrassment. He picked up the tub of ointment, put it back on its shelf, then leaned back against his deck. He beckoned Clint over with a small hand gesture.

Clint went pliantly, smiling.

The kiss was soft. He could barely feel Bucky's fingers on his cheek as he closed his eyes.

Maybe it truly was an addiction. This coming undone by the touch of other people, this fantasy of being one with another.

Even if it was, life was too short for Clint to think about it.


End file.
